As the Internet continues to shrink the world to a single global village, it should come as no surprise to find a band that works together remotely. ‘Phonograph Team Project’ met on a musician’s online social network site and draws it members from Italy (drums and keys), Canada (bass), and USA (guitar). While they have never met face-to-face or played together in the same venue, they’ve managed to record albums. This is their third. What you get is a strong sense of the physical presence of a quartet rocking out together, and certainly not a sort of chain-letter of audio edits that you might anticipate when artists from different parts of the world contribute to a recording. I particularly like the interplay of bass and drums, and the ways in which guitar and keys play the same line, tightly following each other, because this gives a feeling of presence of the musicians.

The press release doesn’t go into detail as to how the pieces were composed or created. Listening to them, there is a sense that some originate in piano or guitar lines, while others come from bass or drum patterns; but even if there is a single source for each tune, the way that the instruments build the textures and work the chords soon makes it clear that this is a band that collaborates across all aspects of its music making – even at a distance.

The set has the driving rhythms and swirling keys of fusion at its hottest, but the use of additional electronics in the mix creates something contemporary. These occur in the effects drenched guitar sounds and the wide range of synthesiser sounds that are layered in the mix. Occasionally the acoustic piano makes an appearance and, in this setting, it comes across as something exotic that drifts into view and then departs. This balance between the electric and the acoustic is managed well by the band and continues the direction of their first two albums (“3 Steps To 4”, 2015, “Morph”, 2016). As an approach to making music, the idea is intriguing. But unless you’d known how the record was made, you’d think this was a live band who’d played lots of gigs together to hone their synchronisation.